


daydreams and nightfalls

by JealousMary



Series: Milex-verse [2]
Category: Alex Turner - Fandom, Last Shadow Puppets, Miles Kane - Fandom
Genre: France - Freeform, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Resolved Romantic Tension, TAOTU era, milex first kiss, two bros chilling in a small studio and making music cause they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JealousMary/pseuds/JealousMary
Summary: In a small studio in rural France, surrounded by nothing but music and summer, they've got nowhere to hide from their feelings, but finding the courage to admit them is not exactly easy, either.
Relationships: Miles Kane/Alex Turner
Series: Milex-verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991281
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	daydreams and nightfalls

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [daydreams and nightfalls](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/706972) by JealousMary. 



> Heavily inspired by:  
> Jeff Buckley — Lilac Wine  
> Depeche Mode — Waiting for the Night

The rays of morning sun blind Alex the second he glances out the window — he squints his eyes, caught off-guard, and covers them with his hand. Not that the stereotype about the ever-gloomy british weather is true yet still here, fifty miles down from Nantes, the summer feels much more real and fulfilling.

He gets a bit used to the bright sunshine just in time to see a familiar figure cross the yard: Miles, carrying a paper bag in his hands, is narrowing his eyes, too, even after entering the shadow from the leaves. He raises his head, noticing Alex, and immediately waves at him with a smile spreading over his face. Alex waves back and hurries downstairs, a little embarassed that Miles has been up long enough to go somewhere and return, while he’s just recently woken up.

And rushes through the flight of stairs, skipping every other step, certainly not due to missing him even since yesterday.

Miles, already awaiting at the door, steps closer to him, but, since his hands are busy, can only greet Alex with a nod — his wide grin, however, does make up for that. Alex clasps his shoulder a little awkwardly. 

“Where ‘ave you gone so early?”

“Took a walk to the nearest shop since I woke up anyway.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Sort of,” Miles curls up the corner of his mouth and ruffles the hair on the back of his head absent-mindedly. “My room’s facing east — not really good for sleeping in. And I’ve been thinking, too.”

Alex doesn’t even ask, what about: now that they’ve settled a bit here, it’s time to start working on the album, and that makes them both feel a little on edge — because it’s new and unfamiliar, because they’re doing it together, because the responsibilities, all of a sudden, have become shared. Pouring your soul into a song is not the hard part — not getting scared afterwards is, when it starts to seem that you’ve poured too much, that you’re not ready to make this part of yourself visible to the whole world. And now, these doubts are hitting twice as strong, and keeping his emotions contained is twice as hard around Miles, as well — for a reason so simple and obvious that Alex can almost find it dull.

Miles tilts his head to the side, seemingly puzzled by the long silence, and Alex, instead of fixing the situation, barely keeps himself from getting lost in his own thoughts even more, glancing at the sunlit spots dancing on Miles’s hair as the wind ruffles the thin curtain behind his back.

Yes, it’s as simple as it gets: he’s merely in love.

“Sorry, I’ve slept a bit too long,” he finally replies, and Miles waves it off.

“I don’t come empty-handed,” he raises the bag higher with a mysterious glint in his eyes.  
Alex cocks an eyebrow questioningly, and Miles proudly shows him a bottle made of dark glass.

“Lilac wine. Home-made,” Alex’s eyebrow arches even higher.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Call it a friendly gift.”

“Friendly? We’ve been here for, like, three days?...”

“He got into a lovely chat with the shop owner and had her completely charmed,” James laughs from behind his back.

“I didn’t mean to!” Miles’s face reddens a bit.

“No one said we blame ya,” James takes the bottle from his hands, winks at Alex and disappears somewhere in the house’s back rooms.

Miles sighs, pretending to be annoyed, but when he glances at Alex, his eyes are sparkling with laughter. Alex winces from the sudden eye contact and lowers his gaze, leaning on the doorframe and trying desperately to hide that he’s panicking because, truthfully, he wasn’t ready to be around Miles almost 24/7. Not because Miles makes him uncomfortable in any way, on the contrary, it feels exhilarating, but at times, too intense and exposing — now, there’s nowhere to hide from the constant desire to gaze at him longer than would be considered normal, or discreetly brush their fingers together as he helps Miles to tune his guitar, or ruffle his hair without pretending it’s nothing but a friendly smack.

Maybe he could even restrain himself, if only it wasn’t for Miles. If Alex knows anything about human relationships, Miles is drawn to him, too: he doesn’t look away even when it gets awkward, and catches his hand before Alex can take it away, and smiles at him like at no one else. And with every second that he laughs at Alex’s joke, throwing his head back, or reaches out to him, drawing his fingers back at the last moment, Alex is overcome by the desire to cross that invisible line between them and confess — but he’s scared. Scared because he’s never fallen for a man before, scared that he’s misreading the whole thing and their connection is merely friendly, scared, above all, to lose that connection, because no one can feel and understand him like Miles does.

Starting to work on the album is a bit scary, too: he can’t get rid of the nagging doubt that they might turn out not so similar as they’ve thought themselves to be, and end up wanting to create something too different and non-matching, and eventually give up on this spontaneous passionate idea of doing music together. It’s been simply too perfect so far — too unreal and fairy-tale like.

“Worried?” Miles tilts his head to the side, as if he can read Alex’s thoughts, and a nervous laugh escapes Alex’s lips.

“Yeah, a bit. Don’t get it wrong, it’s not because of you-”

“I understand,” Miles nods calmly.

“S’not like I was making music all on me own before, of course, but… It’s different with you.”

“I understand,” Miles repeats and suddenly squeezes Alex’s wrist for a brief moment. “But I’m really curious to find out how it’s gonna turn out.”

And Alex can’t help getting lost in his bright smile once again and returning it, and he, too, does feel impatient more than scared, looking forward to discover how their unique like-mindedness, their evergrowing ability to sense the slightest changes in each other’s mood is going to manifest in their music.

Alex breathes out steadily, gathering his courage up a little, and stretches out his hand, barely keeping himself from shivering when Miles takes it.

“Let’s go find out.”

* * *

As they exit the studio, Alex is excitedly describing yet another song’s concept to James and, as he’s not watching where he’s going, trips on the high doorstep, almost landing on his face — Miles manages to catch him thanks to pure luck, as if he senses the exact moment when he needs to turn around and grab a hold of his arms, swaying a little under Alex’s weight.

“Oops,” Alex breathes out and carefully, slowly straightens himself, and Miles forgets to let go of his shoulders as Alex’s fingers, consciously or not, find his wrist, barely touching the skin but certainly feeling the pulse racing underneath.

“Careful,” that’s all Miles can bring himself to say. He tries to avoid accidentally looking into Alex’s eyes — they’re too close, dangerously close for that.

“We haven’t even opened the wine yet, and you’re falling already,” James snickers behind Alex’s back, and the tension between them loosens a bit: they chuckle, too, and step away from each other.

It’s well past noon, and the heat is so strong that there’s nothing to do but settle in the safe shadow of the terrace and, indeed, open the wine, throwing cautious glances at the ground that seems to be sizzling and the air shaking above it, so tense you can almost hear it ringing. Or maybe, these are just cicadas hiding in the grass, no less astonished at the weather than they are.

The wine has a fine taste, with just the right slightest amount of bitterness, and Miles drinks it in small thoughtful sips while Alex just throws the whole glass back with an embarassed chuckle.

“Doesn’t taste like lilac.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually tasted lilac.”

“I didn’t. But, I dunno, figured it’d be different,” he looks around, as if trying to think of a proper comparison, but ends up shrugging and reaching for the bottle again. “I like it, though.”

Miles likes it, too: likes lazying around, using heat as an excuse, and laughing at Alex getting more and more drunk, and realising slowly how perfectly everything went today. He did, no doubt, he did fear that something would go wrong, that it won’t live up to what he imagined, that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with Alex’s creativity, but making music together turns out to be so easy that he can’t wait to go into the studio again and create melodies out of thin air — together, as if they can read each other’s minds.

The only thing that scares him is getting too carried away — giving himself away because, the more time they spent together, the more he sees Alex as more than a friend, and sometimes, it’s hard to stop himself from throwing all caution away and confessing. But Miles keeps silent, not because he’s unsure of his feelings but because he doesn’t want to bother Alex: to make him uncomfortable, to make him feel guilty, to destroy the harmony and understanding between them beyond repair. It’s alright, he can take it — he’d rather have Alex being nothing more than his friend forever than him getting scared of the sudden confession and turning away.

Alex sets down his glass and turns halfway to Miles, propping his head up with his hand.

“S’like I discovered you anew today,” he says blankly, pointing a finger at Miles, and Miles can’t help feeling a little taken aback.

“Thanks? Unless you mean I’ve completely disappointed you as a musician?”

Alex gapes at him in astonishment, then freezes for a couple of seconds, as if he can’t even find the words to reply, and finally, slowly shakes his head, and Miles believes the look on his face even before Alex says anything.

“You haven’t. You’ve no idea how much you haven’t,” he ruffles his hair and turns his unfocused gaze to the sky. “I’ve wondered for, probably, a whole week what it’s gonna be like. Music, for me… Has always been so strongly connected to emotions. Emotions you can’t even put into words, so you put them into a song, y’know? And I couldn’t stop thinking of how it’d work if we were to make it together — couldn’t even imagine how it could be possible,” he chuckles, blushing a little. “I still don’t know how it worked so well, really — maybe it’s ‘cause we feel somethin’ similar? I dunno. I dunno, and that makes me all the more curious to move on with it,” he smiles slyly, throwing a glance at Miles from beneath half-closed eyelids. Miles, feeling his cheeks heating up, hastily pretends to be interested in a ladybug crawling towards his leg across the wooden floor.

“I can’t say I’ve completely rediscovered you today,” he finally says, and Alex raises his eyebrows, playing offended. “But I definitely know you better now than I did this morning.”

 _And I’m even more hopelessly in love with you_.

“Good enough, I’ll take it,” Alex laughs, lowering his head until he’s half-lying on the table, arm stretched towards Miles, fingertips almost touching the stem of his glass. “Y’know, I’ve been told a lot that at our age, people change their… social circle. Part ways with childhood friends…”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too.”

“I don’t really wanna believe that,” Alex bites on his lower lip. “‘Cause I hope me and the guys are gonna stick around for a while, but… They also say that in this time, you form the strongest relationships. Lifelong friends, soulmates, somethin’ like that?” he turns his head at a weird angle to look straight into Miles’s eyes. “And that is something I can believe in.”

Miles breathes out sharply, and almost unconsciously reaches for Alex’s hand, but freezes at the last moment, putting his own hand down without touching him. He could stroke Alex’s knuckles with the slightest move of his fingers — but even if Alex is drunk on wine and music, and in the mood to talk about feelings, what right does it give Miles to take advantage of that? He’s still not bold enough to confess — never will be, probably, and pretending that it’s just a friendly gesture is unfair to both of them.

Alex raises an eyebrow, noticing his sudden movement, and Miles, cursing himself mentally, moves his hand further away as calmly and nonchalantly as he can. Alex traces it attentively with his eyes but doesn’t say anything and, smiling slightly to himself, closes his eyes.

“D’you wanna take a walk later? When going outside won’t mean risking a sunstroke?”

“Sure. James said that if you go out there, to the field,” Miles gestures around the house’s corner, “there’ll be a fantastic view of the sunset.”

“Then we’ll go see it,” Alex nods and moves his head to a more comfortable position without opening his eyes.

The sun starts to gradually approach the horizon, and the first skew ray sneaks underneath the roof, hitting the top of Alex’s head, and his ear, and the emptied glass: Miles shifts to the side a bit so it wouldn’t reflect directly into his eye and for a moment, allows himself to enjoy this peaceful view without worrying about anything.

It even feels a bit sad that in a couple of hours, the evening will settle and revive them with its refreshing coolness, ripping them out of this dreamy, unsteady just like the heated air, but undoubtedly pleasant slumber.

* * *

The rays of sun, already half-way hidden beneath the horizon, flood the vast field they are walking through towards the mesmerizing dance of colours in the sky. James said that if they go far enough in this direction, they’d eventually reach the highway, but that’s quite some distance away even going by car, and from here they can’t see or hear anything, and it’s easy to imagine that the field doesn’t ever end — the dried-up yellow tangled stalks of grass just keep going on and on, until they burn away at the edge of the sky.

Miles is walking a few steps ahead of him, covering his eyes with his hand to protect them from the sun, and Alex can only see his silhouette against the blinding light. It’s not the end of summer yet, but the grass has already grown to reach their waists, and they, unable to see the bumps of ground beneath, keep stumbling and laughing at each other, but never stopping — they just walk until the house behind their backs is nothing more than a barely visible dot, walk like they’re chasing the setting sun.

Alex doesn’t mind it setting, actually: although he can still feel the heat hitting his face, the soft cool breath of the night is taking over, gently and discreetly, and with it, his own breathing get easier, and the colours on the other side of the sky are becoming dim as the night’s peace and tranquility slowly descend all around.

They finally stop only when the night has almost fully put out the day: there’s just a thin lit stripe above the horizon, the last sparkle of an endless summer’s day. Alex freezes one step away from Miles and glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Miles, squinting his eyes, is watching attentively and almost restlessly how their surrondings get darker with every second, and Alex can feel his own heartbeat speed up a little.

Because the nightfall might just be giving him enough courage to do what he didn’t dare to in the daylight. Because he almost didn’t exaggerate when he told Miles that he’s discovered him anew, and because he can’t stop thinking about today’s little precious moments — scattered and not adding up to anything at the first glance, but inevitably converging on a one single point.

A smile dancing on Miles’s lips when they — for god knows which time — finish each other’s sentences and thoughts, trying to come up with a nice end to a melody. His gasp of surprise and an adorably confused expression just before he swiftly catches Alex, saving him from the fall. A hand, almost touching his own but freezing awkwardly less than an inch away.

The first star is already visible above the horizon, if that’s not a trick of the light, and all that’s left of the sun is a light pink trail on the quickly darkening sky, and right now, on the thin line between day and night, when everything seems a bit surreal, it’s easier than ever to imagine your desires coming true and to take every tiniest hint as an absolute proof.

Miles turns to face him, smiling a bit timidly: like he isn’t sure, either, if this subtle moment of the day finally fading away is real and not a mere dream.

“It’s beautiful here,” he whispers hoarsely, and his words almost get lost, withered away with the cool rush of wind, and Alex finally decides to let go of his doubts.

 _Because, if not now, maybe he won’t find the strength ever again_.

He takes a deep breath and stretches out his hand to the left until his fingers touch Miles’s: they both wince, like from a slight electroshock, but Alex fights that momentary panic off, squeezes Miles’s hand and moves another half a step closer.

Neither of them moves for a few moments. Alex closes his eyes, but not all the way, and the world around him blurs and starts to look even less real, and then, Miles squeezes his hand back — definitely too good to be true.

“I like you, Mi,” Alex can hear his own voice, as well as a gasp that follows, as if from somewhere underwater, and shuts his eyes completely: even now he’s not feeling brave enough to look Miles in the eye.

And then fingertips brush against his cheek, stroking gently, and Alex’s eyes fly wide open, meeting suspiciously shiny Miles’s ones for a split second before they simultaneously lean forward for a kiss.

It’s a little awkward, a little hasty, a little desperate — and so good that the second their lips separate, Alex immediately pulls Miles back, wrapping his arms around his neck and barely managing to take a breath so his head won’t spin so much. Miles seems to come a bit to his senses first, laughing straight into Alex’s lips, and pulling Alex closer against him, as if letting him know there’s no need to hold on to his shoulders so tightly, and slowly rubbing his thumbs over Alex’s wrists, calming him down, and Alex’s heartbeat, pounding in his ears, really does get a little steadier after a few long moments. Alex pulls back with a shaky breath and presses their foreheads together, unable to speak for now, and Miles is smiling at him, warmly and a bit slyly.

“I like you, too, Al,” he whispers, then gulps and adds hoarsely, in a more solemn voice:

“Thanks. I’d never have the guts to say it first.”

Alex shakes his head, putting his finger on Miles’s lips.

“Let me enjoy knowing I didn’t make it all up in me head.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the last traces of doubt that he is experiencing a very realistic hallucination vanish, dissolve into oblivion from the tenderness in Miles’s eyes, and the warmth of his hands, and Alex’s own breathing that he still can’t get under control.

It’s getting darker with every moment, and even inches away Miles’s face is barely visible, but Alex can tell he is smiling.

“What’s next, then?” Miles whispers and chuckles, as if deeming his own question ridiculous.

 _Anything we wish_ , Alex wants to reply, but these words make even him a bit dizzy and confused — probably best to start with something simpler and more tangible.

“A whole night, for one?” he presses a quick kiss to the corner of Miles’s lips, and Miles doesn’t let him pull away, circling his arms around his waist, and Alex lowers his head onto Miles’s shoulder. “And tomorrow, we’ll continue working on the album. Bet ya it’ll go even better, huh?”

He looks into Miles’s eyes, hoping to make clear through his intonation and look what he can’t yet put into words — that they have nothing to worry about and nowhere to rush: there will be an infinity of nights to figure it all out.

They head back, surrounded by complete darkness that even the stars shining above their heads can’t get through, but it doesn’t make Alex uneasy, and he feels no need to walk faster. Far ahead, a lit window in the house guides their way, slowly growing in size, and Miles squeezes his hand tightly, entwining their fingers together.

Squeezes it like he’s making a promise to never let go.


End file.
